Built on a former playing field known as the Delta, it was described by Henry James as consisting of

three main divisions: one of them a theater, for academic ceremonies; another a vast refectory, covered with a timbered roof, hung about with portraits and lighted by stained windows, like the halls of the colleges of Oxford; and the third, the most interesting, a chamber high, dim and severe, consecrated to the sons of the university who fell in the long Civil War.[6]

James' "three divisions" are known today as (respectively) Sanders Theatre; Annenberg Hall (formerly Alumni Hall or the Great Hall); and Memorial Transept.
Beneath Annenberg Hall, Loker Commons offers a number of student facilities.

This happy commemorative creation of the Union ... the great bristling brick Valhalla of the early "seventies," that house of honor and of hos­pi­tal­ity which [dispenses] laurels to the dead and dinners to the living.
Henry James (1905)[8]

Between 1865 and 1868 an alumni "Committee of Fifty" raised $370,000 (equal to one-twelfth of Harvard's entire endowment at the time) toward a new building in memory of Harvard men who had fought for the Union in the American Civil War,[10] particularly the 136 dead[11]‍—‌a "Hall of Alumni in which students and graduates might be inspired by the pictured and sculpted presence of her founders, benefactors, faculty, presidents, and most distinguished sons."
When, about the same time,[10] a $40,000 bequest was received from Charles Sanders (class of 1802) for
"a hall or theatre to be used on [any] public occasion connected with the College, whether literary or festive", a vision was formed of a single building containing a large theater as well as a large open hall, and thus meeting both goals.[10]

A site was found on the "Delta", the triangle bounded by Cambridge, Kirkland, and Quincy Streets.[A]
The project was formally named Memorial Hall in September 1870, and
on October 6 the cornerstone was laid,[12]Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. composing a hymn for the occasion.[B]

In May 1878 the Committee of Fifty notified the President and Fellows that the project was complete and the premises ready for formal transfer to the university. On July8 the President and Fellows unanimously voted to "accept with profound gratitude this splendid and precious gift."[7]

The building's High Victorian Gothic design, by alumni William Robert Ware and Henry Van Brunt, was selected in a blind competition. A 1907 publication gives dimensions of 305 by 113 feet, with a height of 190 feet at the tower;[12]
a 2012 source gave a height of 195 feet, making it the ninth-tallest building in Cambridge at that time.[15]
Its 1970 National Historic Landmark designation recognized it one of the nation's most dramatic examples of High Victorian Gothic architecture.[16]

What was originally known as Alumni Hall[citation needed]‍—‌nine thousand square feet shaped by massive wooden trusses, walnut paneling, and a blue, stenciled ceiling‍—‌was dedicated in 1874.

Originally intended for formal occasions such as alumni dinners, it was almost immediately converted to a dining commons, and was for fifty years the college's main dining hall (charging, in 1884, $3.97 for a month's meals).[19]
In 1893 the Harvard Graduates Magazine described
"the throngs of men who, at one o'clock, are to be seen racing across the yard from Harvard, Boylston, and Sever [Halls], striving to reach [Memorial] Hall ahead of slower competitors for vacant seats at the overtaxed tables".[20]
But "as the center of University life moved south toward the Charles, [the dining commons] became less popular and closed in 1925"[21]
(see Harvard College § House system) after which Alumni Hall saw mostly light use, typically as a venue for dances, banquets, examinations, and the like. In 1934 The New York Times reported that Harvard officials had "at last found a use for Memorial Hall" by siting a rifle range in the basement.[22]

During World War II the Crimson reported[21] that "the Great Hall" was being used "in winter-time for the 6 o'clock in the morning calisthenics of the [military] Chaplain's School" (though without explaining why Harvard Divinity students had been singled out for this treatment) and intimated that Stevens Laboratory, in the basement, "is doing secret work in acoustics."

After extensive renovations, in 1996 the space was renamed Annenberg Hall and supplanted, as the freshmen dining hall, the Harvard Union, which had performed that function during most of the intervening time.[18]

Alumni (now Annenberg) Hall in 1878‍—‌"in which students and grad­u­ates might be inspired by the pictured and sculpted presence of [Har­vard's] founders, benefactors, faculty, presidents, and most dis­tin­guished sons."[10] A 1916 guide described it as "very im­pres­sive; in spite of the mistake of ill-placed rows of hat-racks ..."[23]

One of twenty-eight marble tablets honor­ing Harvard's Union dead. This one lists Robert Gould Shaw, Class of 1860.

South door and windows of Memorial Transept

Memorial Transept, south facade

The Memorial Transept [2,600 square feet (240 m2)] consists of a 60-foot-high (18 m) gothic vault above a marble floor, black walnut paneling and stenciled walls, a large stained-glass over each of two exterior doors, and‍—‌commemorating 136 Harvard men who died fighting for the Union‍—‌twenty-eight white tablets,

Sanders contributed in an unusual way to the early work of Wallace Sabine, considered the founder of architectural acoustics. In 1895, tasked with improving the dismal acoustical performance of the Fogg Museum's lecture hall, Sabine carried out a series of nocturnal experiments there, using hundreds of seat cushions borrowed from nearby Sanders as sound-absorbent material‍—‌each night's work being limited by the requirement that the cushions be back in Sanders in time for morning lectures there.
The scientific unit of sound absorption, the sabin, is very close to the absorption provided by one Sanders Theatre cushion.[25]

View from northeast showing Sanders Theatre at left, doors and windows of Memorial Transept at center. Four-faced clock was added 1897, and destroyed by fire 1956.

After 1996 restoration of tower to 1877–1897 appearance

The central tower was nearly complete
by 1876, but criticism convinced Van Brunt and Ware to revise it in 1877. In 1897[28] was added what a 1905 guidebook described as "an enormous [four-faced clock which] detonates the hours in a manner which is by no means conducive to the sleep of the just and the rest of the weary",[29]
and which Kenneth John Conant termed "railroad Gothic".[30]

In 1932 the clock's driving works, and the associated 155-pound (70kg) bell-clapper, were somehow lowered 115 feet (35m) to the ground without attracting attention; visiting Yale students were suspected[31][32]
but the clapper was never found. Three years later the disappearance of the replacement clapper, under similar circumstances, was rumored to be Yale's revenge for the theft of its mascot, Handsome Dan.[33][34][35]

The 1897 tower was destroyed by fire in 1956 and rebuilt, to its 1877–1897 appearance, in 1996.[28]

The John Harvard statue was originally (1884) installed before Memorial Hall's west façade, but in 1924 it was moved to its current location on the west side of University Hall.
Memorial Hall being still, at the time, the college dining hall, a Harvard Lampoon cartoon showed "John Harvard" dismounting his plinth, chair in tow, and holding his nose because he "couldn't stand the smell of 'Mem' any longer".[citation needed]

^"During the nineteenth century, Kirkland street went by the name of 'Professors' Row'... On the south side of the street was the college playground, the 'Delta,' so called from its shape being that of the Greek letter, bounded by Kirkland, Cambridge and Quincy streets. Here the football games took place."[12]
To take over the Delta's prior role, Jarvis Field was purchased‍—‌about five acres, or 2ha, bounded by Massachusetts Avenue, Oxford Street, Everett Street, and now-defunct Jarvis Street[13] (and now occupied mainly by housing for graduate students).[10]
In 1874, Harvard played McGill there in the first rugby-style football game played in the United States.[14]

In the 1960s Kirkland Street was truncated in conjunction with construction of the Science Center, so that the Delta no longer exists as an isolated city block.[citation needed]

Not with the anguish of hearts that are breaking / Come we as mourners to weep for our dead;
Grief in our breasts has grown weary with aching, / Green is the turf where our tears we have shed.
While o'er their marbles the mosses are creeping / Stealing each name and its record away.
Give their proud story to memory's keeping, / Shrined in the temple we hallow today.

Hushed are their battlefields, ended their marches. / Deaf are their ears to the drumbeat of mourn--
Rise from the sod ye far columns and arches! / Tell their bright deeds to the ages unborn.

Emblem and legend may fade from the portal, / Keystone may crumble and portal may fall;
They were the builders whose work is immortal, / Crowned with the dome that is over us all.[10]